On 10/22/97, Joseph Pietro Riolo <riolo[_at_]voicenet.com> wrote:
>
> Frankly, I am tired of reading the so long post that is interspersed
> with bashings on West.
>
> People who oppose the database bill have to smell coffee and start
> to be realistic and pragmatic in this Information Age. Rather than shot
> the whole bill down, they should improve it or provide better bills. I
> am not good at writing a better bill or revising the existing database
> bill. But, if anyone know of any place on Internet that can provide
> better wordings or bills, let us know.
Oh please, Mr. Riolo. The starting point for database protection legislation were the measures drafted in the early 90's in Europe. These measures made a good faith and pragmatic attempt to balance the interests of database providers and consumers. Then, industry lobbyists took over and what is proposed now is so overreaching that it is a joke. You might read the January 1997 article in the Vanderbilt Law Review by Profs. Reichman and Samuelson and then you would realize that the elements of a realistic and pragmatic bill have long been known and discussed.
Unfortunately, in the current environment, a balanced pragmatic bill is not realistic because among other things such a bill would not protect West's databases the way West wants them to be protected.
Now the fact is that West is the most forceful proponent of database protection legislation and the primary funder of the coaltions and studies. It appears to exercise something tantamount to veto power on the positions of the IIA on this and other isssues.
So, what has happened is that West is attempting to privatize a body of case law which is many respects has been a joint venture of the courts and West. West is sabotaging any possibility for a fair, reasonable, balanced and effective database bill -- as long as they are calling the shots for the database industry, it will never happen. Why? Because any pragmatic bill has to have safeguards to permit important bodies of public domain information, like the laws, from being privatized, and, the safeguards are therefore unacceptable to West.
In the meantime, at the hearing today everyone for the bill was bashing Feist. It is interesting to me that the Feist decision resulted in a group of telephone directory CD-ROM and software products that have been highly useful and popular -- for example, software to use caller ID to match up with a CD of telephone numbers is something that would have never happened without the Feist decision. Pro CD as a company would not even exist. And, I have never heard of any demonstrable damage to the local telephone companies. So, in the particular area of commerce to which the Feist decision concerned, it has been a fantastic success. It has stimlulated the development and creation of new products and services of benefit to society.
In addition, it really steams me to have a subcommittee which has jurisdiction over not just intellectual property legislation, but over the courts, to act as if it has no responsibility for the failure of the federal courts to publish their own official versions of opinions with an official citation. These are the same Congressman who have acquiesced to the conditions which are exploited by West and which West now wants to have solidified into an enforceable right. And, this underscores the problem with database protection legislation since most versions create enormous incentives to dimantle public domain government databases.
But, if you are upset with me, you have one who agrees. Today, Chairman Coble was highly irate with my comments - in a written statement that I passed out - that the bill was on a fast track. Oddly, though, he also read into the record my comments that this bill was a special interest bill for West, so, I am not so sure what provoked him the most. I just think I touched a nerve re West. Perhaps with you as well.
The legal and economics literature is developed and describe the parameters of balanced, fair, and pragmatic database protection. The committee staffers who are respoonsible for drafting the bill have access to all of these resources and other versions of database protection.
But if you want a couple of suggestions as what a balanced bill might have, try just a few similar to those in the earlier European proposals:
Term limited to ten years, if not less.
()Mandatory compulsory licensing for monopolistic databases.
()Limitations of database protection if a second comer could not practically replicate the database (i.e., gain access to the corrections of opinions mailed by judges to West and not placed on the database, or locate 90 year old court opinions, or even 5 year old court opinons where the archives are incomplete).
()Balanced remedies for those subject to database protection abuse including perhaps even punitive damages (even I would not suggest the prison terms of ten years that this laughable bill suggests for those who violate a database protection right).
()Modification of US antitrust law to comport with the stricter European law, which is the legal context of the early European proposals.
As far as West is concerned, I enclose below a posting that was placed on the law-lib list today, and read just after your posting.
And, one more thing. After the Chairman's outburst about my statement (as well as another outburst about the American Assoc. for the Advancement of Science which had in some way expressed a fear that the bill was on a fast track), the Chairman made clear that the bill was not and never had been on a fast track, and that there would be more hearings in January (a committment that no one was able to obtain prior to the hearing).
Barney Frank joined in, and said, that he was not inclined to read the remainder of a statement that had such a gross inaccuracy (i.e., re fasttrack.) But, I think he did read it for he made an interesting comment later on in the hearing -- and, I hope I have this exactly correct, but it was to the effect that he was going to propose an amendment that no federal court could require citation to a database of court opinions that received protection under the bill.
IMHO, West in a sense is holding the database industry hostage.
Alan
see http://www.hyperlaw.com for a copy of HyperLaw's comments.
I believe that the rate may be substantially more than 15% for West/Thomson products, and especially for products from the old pre-merger West. It is difficult to point to hard facts but consider: we have just received the 1997 Federal Practice Digest pocket parts, invoiced at $408, up 38.3% from the pre-merger 1995 price. Added to this was a $32.00 Shipping and handling charge, up 141% from the 1995 charge.
The old West, was like the old LCP, fairly stable and reasonable in pricing. But when LCP products were transferred to CBC in 1992, prices shot up. I have compiled a list of such products in my library, and I yfound that from the Thomson buyout of LCP through 1996, supplementation costs increased from 150% to as much as 400%. I think we will see the same kind of increases for West products over the next few years, especially West treatise material, with pocket parts priced at under $20. Comparable CBC sets have pocket parts going for as much as 12 times this much, and although The Thopmson Corporations' Annual Report tell shareholders that printing costs will be reduced substantially by using West's famous Eagan facility, I would bet that West prices rise to CBC levels, rather than CBC prices falling to West levels.
West reporters have already shown the pattern we can expect. Because all of them ship several new volumes per year, they offer the possibility of incremental increases with each new volume, which may go unnoticed until you realize at the end of the year that each volume is costing substantially more than last year. So far these increases have amounted to only about 10% over the year for some reporters, but I waould anticipate that this will accelerate. This is a gold mine, since there is usually no alternative to buying these reporters, and it will be fully exploited.
And CBC price increases for non-West titles continue to be exorbitant. A recent case came to light on law-lib when Ken Svengalis discovered that the price for Sutherland on Statutory Construction had increased by 52% from last years' figure, included in his NEW book.
They are going to ruin us.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Joe K. Stephens Law Librarian Phone: (503) 986-5644 Oregon Supreme Court Library Fax: (503) 986-5623 1163 State Street E-Mail: jstephen[_at_]willamette.eduSalem, Oregon 97310
On Thu, 23 Oct 1997 DumainePR[_at_]aol.com wrote:
>
> As budget prep time approaches, I for one would like to know if anyone
> has a handle on where price inflation is heading this year, right now.
> Any figures for last year would be useful, but we all know that that the
> WEST/THOMPSON and other mergers are having their effects felt since this
> spring. I fear that the trend we see now will be our destiny in 1998
> before it all cools off (hopefully) some time in 1999. As much of my
> print materials & CD-ROM budget is now paid to these merged, foreign
> owned corporations, 1997-1998 inflation feels like 15%.
>
> Does anyone have hard facts to verify or dispute an inflation rate of 15%?
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: :: Alan D. Sugarman Federal Appeals on Disc tm CD-ROM :: :: President Opinions of US Courts of Appeals :: :: 1993 to Date - All Circuits :: :: HyperLaw, Inc. Registered Trademark :: :: P.O. Box 1176 DO NOT SHORT CIRCUIT YOUR CLIENTS :: :: New York, NY 10023 :: :: sugarman[_at_]hyperlaw.com 212-787-2812 212-496-4138(fax) :: :: :: :: http://www.hyperlaw.com :: :: :: :: /// /// /// [R] :: :: /// /// /// :: :: /// /// /// :: :: //////////////// /// :: :: //////////////// /// :: :: /// /// /// :: :: /// /// /////////// :: :: /// /// /////////// :: :: :: :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::Received on Fri Oct 24 1997 - 02:20:57 GMT
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